Literary Agents
Take Wing
FROM PUBLISHING
TRENDS (FEBRUARY 2002)
It
can’t have escaped any industry observer’s notice that
literary agents are on the move. Bill Contardi’s
out of William Morris and Karen Solem’s
gone from Writers House, while the Loomis
Agency’s Nicole Aragi has just set up her
own shop.
What’s up? PT queried those involved in the changes
to tell us what they saw from their perspectives and,
while there’s no single explanation, some common themes
emerged. First, the economy has obviously forced larger
agencies to trim their budgets, even as individual agents
realized that splitting smaller commissions with the
home office was less and less viable. Then too, cheaper
and better technology has made it easier for solo agents
to manage an office without a staff. Finally, several
say quality of life issues come into play: Jody Hotchkiss,
who left Sterling Lord Literistic to start his
own company (with SLL as a client), says that he reevaluated
his own career after the death a Connecticut neighbor
who had worked at Cantor Fitzgerald and left
behind a wife and young children. Bill Contardi left
William Morris as a result of restructuring in
the wake of Robert Gottlieb’s departure and
Jim Wiatt’s rise in LA, but he plans to continue
agenting on his own in both publishing and film, working
with independent literary agents for film and TV representation.
Though Linda Chester began to renegotiate her
business relationship with her agents on the advice
of her accountant, she decided to downsize because she
realized that managing staff was not how she wanted
to spend her time. She had been paying for Rockefeller
Center office expenses and assistants’ salaries, and
in some cases, agents’ retainers, but working with authors
was getting lost in the day-to-day details. At one point,
a total of twenty, including agents Joanna Pulcini,
Julie Rubenstein, Paul Fedorko, Fredi
Friedman, Judith Ehrlich, and Laurie Fox,
were affiliated with the agency. By late August, only
one assistant and Laurie Fox were still there, though
Fox works in California. Now Chester is subletting her
space and taking smaller space in the building. “I wanted
to work with creative people and have fun,” she says,
rather than managing an office and mentoring new agents.
With lower overhead, she hopes to give some of her profits
to charity. Julie Rubenstein appreciates Chester’s p.o.v.,
but says that she’s glad to be on her own and keeping
full commissions on books. “Linda was very helpful to
me in terms of follow-through after publication,” but
the new arrangement that Chester would have offered
(with Rubenstein continuing to work at home, but paying
expenses and still splitting the commission 50/50) was
not financially viable.
Karen
Solem also says she found it increasingly difficult
to juggle the expense of splitting commissions and a
two-and-a-half-hour commute from Columbia County. After
“six happy years” with Writers House, she has rented
office space in Chatham, and with the help of a part-time
assistant, has started her own agency. Referring to
her former colleagues, she adds, “No matter how wonderful
they are, you pay a steep price.” That’s less and less
the case with a solo practice, newly solo film agent
Jody Hotchkiss argues. With less overhead and infrastructure
required than in the past, he says, an independent agent
with a solid client list — who could have once expected
to make money in 3 to 5 years — now expects to break
even by year one and make money by year two.
Indeed, independence is addictive: Nicole Aragi
says she moved because she had had her own business
in England and “in the end I succumbed to the urge to
do so again.” In between wrestling with Verizon, she
closed the Colson Whitehead deal (“a solid six
figure” two-book deal with Doubleday/Vintage),
is in the process of submitting first-time novelist
Monica Ali’s book, and is being “deluged” with
submissions.
Marly
Rusoff, once an affiliate with Carlisle &
Co., succumbed in September, and set up her
own shop in Bronxville. Though she remains on good terms
with former colleagues, she wanted to do fewer projects
and “make the decision where to take my risks.” Having
worked in many areas of publishing, she says it’s her
“ambition to be available to my authors for the whole
publishing process.” She recently signed up Pat Conroy,
whose wife, Cassandra King, was already a
client. And she has also taken on an associate of her
own, Renee Zuckerbrot, who was a colleague at
Doubleday. In exchange for helping in the development
and selling of a project, Rusoff takes a third of the
commission. Rusoff also uses IMG for foreign
rights.
There’s a middle way between going it alone and being
in a large agency. Having built up a client list at
The Robbins Agency over seven years, Bill
Clegg joined with ex-LB editor Sarah Burnes
to launch their agency in March of 2001. Unlike many
agencies, they are an “S corp,” sharing expenses and
distributing commission by a formula that has resulted
in a profit in year one. Sharing space had brought Henry
Dunow, Irene Skolnick, and Martha Kaplan
together under one roof originally. Now they’re looking
for more space so that they can sublet to other agents.
Sally Wofford Girand, who handled foreign rights
and was an agent at the Elaine Markson Agency
for 14 years, is going into business with four other
agents in a co-op venture. She approached everyone after
a “9/11 moment,” and is leaving Markson at the end of
this month. Meanwhile, David McCormick just exchanged
IMG’s large roof for a smaller one with Nina Collins,
who is starting a new agency herself. He will
be contributing a modest portion of his earnings to
cover the company’s overhead.
But
Michael Carlisle argues that bigger is better:
In business now for four years, he has created a model
with some similarities to Linda Chester’s — including
the expensive offices — but with a larger on-staff agent
base. He also has an affiliate relationship with four
other agents, including Paul Bresnick. He said
he made a lot of expensive mistakes when he set up:
he bought the wrong phone system (too small) and signed
up with the wrong Internet service provider (went belly
up). The purpose of this set-up is to create a substantial
presence in the industry very quickly. This objective
increases the odds — as the new kid on the block — that
your manuscript submission will be read more rapidly,
he says. Those at the Harold Ober Agency would
probably agree: Coming off its most successful year
ever, the agency just hired agent Alex Smithline
from Scovil, Chichak & Galen.
Agents’
contact info: Nicole Aragi: nfaragi@aol.com
• Burnes & Clegg: (212) 331-9880 • Michael
Carlisle: mvc@carlisleco.com
• Linda Chester: Lchester@lindachester.com
• Bill Contardi: Wcontardi@yahoo.com
/ (212) 599-2910 • Jody Hotchkiss: Jody@Haalit.com
• Julie Rubenstein: JWREAL@aol.com
• Marly Rusoff: marly@rusoffagency.com
/ (914) 961-7939 • Karen Solem: ksolem@klsbooks.com
©2002
Publishing Trends
